


A Passing Touch in the Dark

by tryslora



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bakery and Coffee Shop, Halloween, M/M, Minor Allison Argent/Scott McCall, Minor Cora Hale/Isaac Lahey, Minor Lydia Martin/Jackson Whittemore, Soul Bond, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-01
Updated: 2014-11-01
Packaged: 2018-02-23 12:34:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2547641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tryslora/pseuds/tryslora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was just a passing touch in the dark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Passing Touch in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> I started this yesterday (on Halloween) and really wanted to post it for the day, as a Halloween fic, but it didn't get there. So instead, y'all get it as a morning after fic, which kind of works too. The idea spawned out of the concept of what if soulmatehood was established at first touch, but there's such a crowd of people that you have no idea who it was. And more importantly, what if something masked the searing pain of that first mark, so you didn't even know it happened? And thus, we get this... 
> 
> As always, I do not own the world nor characters of Teen Wolf, I just like to play with them.

_It was just a passing touch in the dark._

 

Stiles stabs his thumb at the beginning of the night, and he blames everything after on that.

It’s not his fault, really. It’s dark, he has terrible knife skills, and he wouldn’t even be here and trying to chop vegetables in the dark if it weren’t for Isaac bailing on Scott at the last minute. “I am _not_ a chef,” he mutters. “You _knew_ that and you dragged me into this mess and _why_ are we catering this in the dark, anyway? Can’t we at least have light in the _kitchen_?”

“Lydia likes atmosphere,” Scott says, tone mild as he easily slices through bricks of cheese and quickly lays it out in a perfect pattern on platters. “You know that. She wants the perfect party, and we promised to deliver. She can make or break my business, and I have a wedding depending on this.”

For any other caterer, that would be a wedding to _cater_ , but no, Scott’s marrying his high school sweetheart in six months and without business, there are no funds to pay for his own party, and Stiles will _not_ let him cater his own wedding. Therefore, here he is, failing miserably at pretending to be a chef. “Okay, fine,” Stiles grumbles. “I’ll take care of the oven and the canapés, okay? You chop, slice, dice, whatever, and I will go somewhere that means I won’t be bleeding on anything important and I’ll try not to burn the house down.”

“Go wrap that up in the bathroom first,” Scott tells him, so Stiles does. He digs through the medicine cabinet until he finds a band-aid, and when he bleeds through that, he adds several layers of gauze and medical tape over that. By the time he’s done, his left thumb is roughly twice the normal size and feels like a club.

Tonight is _not_ going well.

The crowd was light when he went into the bathroom, but by the time he emerges the party is going full blast. Stiles sees Scott circulating with two platters and spots Allison carrying drinks in another corner. He has to make his way through the crowd, his thumb throbbing the entire time as he tries to push through the crowd and make it back to the kitchen. Once there he nudges a couple out, interrupting their kiss and getting a glare for his trouble.

He sighs heavily, but at least he’s finally alone, out of the crush, and can get back to work.

And it _is_ work. For _hours_ he is on his feet, trying not to dance to the music thumping through the house and trying to ignore the pain in his thumb. About halfway through he takes a five minute break to hunt down some painkiller and a quick bottle of water before it’s back into the trenches of putting tray after tray into the oven and then plating them for Scott and Allison to carry around.

By the time it’s over, and the kitchen has been put back to rights, Stiles feels like he’s been through a war zone. And of course, _that_ is when Isaac makes an appearance, his scarf askew and his cheeks flushed, curls slightly ruffled like someone’s been running their fingers through them.

Lucky bastard, because someone probably _has_. 

“This is Cora.” He introduces the girl with him, and Isaac’s quick smile seems light compared to her quick flash of a smirk paired with rising eyebrows. “She’s just moved back to town. She was born here, but left ages ago.”

“Nice to meet you.” Stiles doesn’t make the mistake of trying to hug her, the way Scott does, and she doesn’t skewer him with the same dark look. “Got it, no touching.”

She shrugs one shoulder. “Not much of a hugger.” Although she’s leaning into Isaac like she could merge with his side, so it’s obviously not something about personal space.

Whatever, it doesn’t matter to Stiles. He doesn’t need this anymore. He unties his apron, tosses it on top of the pile of linens that Scott and Allison need to take home to wash, and the equipment that Isaac promised to help pack out of Lydia’s kitchen. “I’m out of here,” he says. “I’m going to go home and see if I can sleep through the pain.”

“If it still hurts in the morning, you should get that checked out,” Scott says, a concerned frown furrowing his brow. “Seriously, dude. Did you cut the tip of your thumb off?”

“Nah, bro, it’s not that bad. Just fingers are sensitive, and it’s not like I rested it,” Stiles assures him. He claps Scott on the shoulder, but Scott doesn’t look any less worried. “I promise, I’ll get it checked out if it’s not better when I wake up. Right now, I just want to get off my feet and _sleep_. And if I linger around here any longer, Lydia’s going to come back to check in on you, and that means dealing with Jackson, and I do _not_ want to be responsible for screwing up your gig by saying something I shouldn’t. So I’m out of here right now.”

He manages to escape with the flood of people heading out to cars, jostled by the crowd and caught up in the fervor of goodbyes. The costumes make it nearly impossible to tell who is who, and Stiles is thankful that Halloween is finally over. Tomorrow will dawn with light and a clear view of everyone around him, and with luck, less pain in his thumb.

#

He dreams of things that hurt—pounding his thumb with a hammer, laying it on the train tracks to be run over, bending it backwards. When he wakes, he unwraps it before he even gets out of bed, wincing at the way the bandage pulls at the scab. He can’t see anything beneath the dried blood, so he stumbles to the bathroom and washes it. The blood flows down the sink, and he realizes that the cut may have bled like crazy, but it seems to be well-scabbed and healing.

That’s not what’s causing the pain.

The part that hurts is the fresh mark on the pad of his thumb, the dark design less than a half-inch in diameter. It is still red all around, as if it burned itself into existence sometime in the last twelve hours, and he knows it must have. It wasn’t there when he checked his injury before wrapping it up.

Last night, Stiles met his soulmate, and he had no idea when it happened. The burn of the mark appearing was covered by the throbbing from the cut.

Fuck.

Last night he touched _someone_ in that crowd who is meant for him. Someone who now wears a small stylized fox somewhere on their body and probably has no idea that it belongs to Stiles. Although how _they_ missed the pain, he doesn’t know. At least he has a reason for not crying out and grabbing the person immediately.

Not that it always works that way. It’s possible the other person doesn’t carry a mark at all. Sometimes it’s just a one way street, and wouldn’t that be Stiles’s luck, to end up always pining for the rest of his life?

He looks at it again and sighs. Tip of his thumb. Right there in view constantly, unless he wears gloves. And Stiles knows it’ll be noticed, because he can’t keep his hands still. He talks with them, flails them around like they have more to say than he does, and maybe they do. So much for soul marks being _private_.

It’s not like he can do anything about it now. It’s the first of a brand new month, he has revisions due for a short story by Monday, and he’s feeling tired, cranky, and still sore. He can’t focus on his thumb; he needs to deal with writing. So he showers quickly, pulls on whatever comes to hand, and heads out to Argent Wolf Rampant because he knows they’ll give him the coffee for free if he pays for his pastry.

A starving artist has to find his way somehow, right?

#

He sits in the corner of the cafe, trying to stay as out of the way as possible during the mid-morning rush on a Saturday morning. Having people around is distracting, but it’s also good for his brain to do little warmups, imagining the lives behind the idle chatter and ordering coffee. Like the young couple with bruised eyes who look like they were up too late partying to be up and around now. Or the two teenage boys who stand in line, idly nudging at each other like they want to touch but are afraid to do it in public. Stiles waits, watching, until he sees one just barely catch the other’s pinky, holding on for a moment before letting go. He smiles to himself at the show of shy, young love.

“Are you working?” Someone sinks into the chair opposite his, putting a cup too close to his laptop for comfort, undoing the careful balance Stiles has created between used and empty space on the table. He blinks, trying to remember exactly why she looks familiar, and her swift grin is sharp. “Cora,” she tells him. “Isaac’s girlfriend. The reason you were stuck helping Scott and Allison last night.”

“Oh. Right. Cora.” Knowing her name doesn’t help, and the fact that she actually seems to _know_ Scott and Allison doesn’t help either. “And yes, I’m working. Trying to, anyway. It’s hard typing this morning.”

“How’s your hand?” She nods at him and he wonders what she’s talking about, holds his fingers up in front of him.

“Tired? Oh, my thumb.” He wiggles his fingers at her before dropping them to the keyboard. “Fine. Still in one piece. Stopped bleeding overnight, so it’s okay. I’m just tired and words aren’t making it from the brain to the keyboard. I swear I wrote a sentence that said _the blind cat hula-hoop strawberries_ and I’m not even sure what it was meant to be before autocorrect got hold of it.”

She reaches out, grabs onto his left hand and yanks it forward, gaze narrowed.

“Ow, dude. Hey, Isaac, your girlfriend is interrupting me _and_ she’s handsy!”

“Shut up,” Cora hisses, turning his hand over, splaying his thumb away from his fingers. “Just shut up, okay?”

He realizes what she’s looking at only after she has it exposed, her thumb pinched between her fingers and her mouth pursed into a little _O_. “I don’t believe it,” she mutters. “Chances are what, one in a hundred? I mean, it’s not like he left the _wall_ the entire time he was there. How the hell…” She drops his hand, picking up her cell phone instead and angrily punching something into it with her fingertips.

Stiles shakes his hand, trying to shake the feel of her fingers. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”

“Are you upsetting my girlfriend?” Isaac yanks a chair over, wiping his hands on a towel as he sits. “Want more coffee, Stiles? Scott didn’t say I have to cut you off yet.”

“I’m not trying to, dude. If anything, she’s upsetting me.” Stiles closes the laptop, figuring he’s done editing for the moment. He’s beginning to think that his best friend’s coffee shop might _not_ be the best place to work, but where else is he going to go? “She’s interrupting me, grabbed my hand, and now she’s furious at her phone.”

“It’s him,” Cora says curtly. “Isaac, it’s _him_.”

Isaac’s eyebrows go up so high Stiles thinks they might be aiming for his hairline. “Stiles, shit, seriously? You’ve got Derek’s soul mark?”

Stiles curls his hand protectively around his thumb, holds it against his chest. “Who?”

“My asshole of a brother, who hates people and was at that party last night out of protest, and turned into a complete grumpyass who left without me when _someone_ shot him in the ass with a soul mark,” Cora says. “He’ll be here in five minutes, and you two can sort the mess out.” She snorts, shakes her head. “I’m sorry, but someone has to do it. Hope you’ve got a thick skin.”

Stiles opens his mouth, closes it again. Looks at Isaac. “I’m going to kill you,” he says quietly. “Someday, when this is all calm again, I am going to kill you for sticking me with that job last night.”

“How else were you going to get an invitation to one of Lydia’s Halloween parties?” Isaac asks.

“I didn’t want one,” Stiles protests. “I outgrew that crush years ago. I would’ve been happy sitting in the apartment, handing out candy to the kids from the complex. They’re cute. Maybe someone will make a costume from one of my stories someday. I can dream, right?”

Isaac gives him a look, and Stiles sighs. “Is he really that bad?” he has to ask.

The expression Isaac wears is almost sympathetic, and maybe a little worried. “Yeah,” he says. “Derek’s really that bad.”

#

Stiles leaves before Derek gets there. 

It’s not five minutes. In fact, after five minutes Scott yells for Isaac to get back behind the counter, and after thirty, Cora heads off to the bathroom. Stiles takes advantage of being alone to get up and get _out_ , his laptop bag clutched under his arm and the remains of his coffee left behind. He has to do a dance on his way through the door, trying not to slam into (trip over, fall into the arms of) some hottie walking in, but he manages to escape with a minimum of damage. He’s free, and he can go somewhere else.

Anywhere else.

Maybe somewhere he can get some work done.

He drives aimlessly for a while, trying to assimilate the mess that his life has suddenly become, like he’s part of some daytime drama on TV.

Point one: he’s a struggling author, trying to make rent with short stories and occasional help with Scott’s catering gigs, while also trying to write the Great American Novel.

Point one-A: there is no such thing as the Great American Novel, and he’s never going to get a movie deal. But a paycheck would be nice.

Point two: his thumb aches, and he has a brand new tattoo that probably means something and apparently belongs to some dick who just so happens to be the brother of Isaac’s new girlfriend.

Point three: he just ran away rather than meet the asshole who is supposed to be his soulmate.

It occurs to him that if Derek _knows_ about the mark, that means he’s marked too. So this isn’t an unrequited thing. It’s Derek and Stiles. It’s Stiles and Derek.

It’s… asshole and asshole?

Fuck, this is going to be a train wreck, and Stiles wants nothing to do with it.

So he ends up in the library, way in the back, curled up in a chair near a plug with his laptop balanced on his knees as he tries to work his way through the edits on the one short story he’s managed to sell since graduating from college.

One story. Six months. Oh yeah, he’s really racking up the starving part of the starving artist points.

On the other hand, it’s something to do and it takes his mind off the stupid image on his fingertip, so he works. He actually manages to focus and gets through the remaining ten pages of the story, checks it over one more time, then bundles it up to send off to his editor. If he’s lucky, he can buy one meal out of the paycheck, but he figures he has to start small, right?

Of course, once that’s done, he somehow finds himself searching through the internet trying to find out exactly what the symbol on his thumb means. He searches picture after picture, reads through about ten sites, and tries to figure out why some images rotate the same direction as his and why some go the other way, and whether it makes a difference.

“It’s called a triskelion,” someone says.

Stiles flails, arms going out wide as he comes to his feet, slamming the laptop closed and somehow managing to not drop it or shove it at the man standing next to him.

The hottie from the door in the coffee shop, in fact.

Who is now in the library.

This cannot possibly be a coincidence.

“Derek?” he ventures, because of course they would send him looking for him. _Of course they would_. Scott probably thinks he’s being helpful, and Isaac is an evil little bitch sometimes.

Derek nods, holds out one hand. “And you’re Stiles.”

Stiles clasps his hands, waits to feel something and doesn’t. Of course, it isn’t the first time they’ve touched, is it? No, that was last night, in the dark, in the middle of a crowded party where they never even saw each other and Stiles couldn’t feel the impact of the moment. He licks his lips. “I am. You’re not much of an asshole so far.”

One eyebrow goes up, and Stiles watches it, curious, wondering if _eyebrow_ is an entire language for this man.

“Give me time,” Derek says. He lets Stiles go, but holds his hand out still, fingers curling in invitation, and Stiles figures out what he means. He offers his left hand this time, palm up, thumb towards Derek, and isn’t at all surprised at the way he gently holds him, fingertips brushing against the design. “And you’re a fox,” he says quietly. “Not lifelike, you have to really look at the design to see it, which wasn’t easy.” Derek lets Stiles go and fishes a phone out of his pocket, unlocking it to show a picture of a really good ass cheek and Stiles’s fox imprint.

Stiles flushes. “Yes, that would be mine. Well, my mark. Your ass. Which is a very nice ass, by the way. Or at least what I can see of it is, which is good to know. Not that I think we’re anywhere near the point of ass-viewing. And I’m really sorry for saying this out loud.”

The eyebrows are on the move again, in a complicated dance that Stiles suspects is Derek’s version of his own verbal rambling. Stiles reaches up, skates his fingers over one eyebrow. “Maybe someday I’ll learn how to speak your language.” He feels the flush stain his cheeks. “If you’re interested in giving me the chance, that is.”

“Do you ever stop talking?”

Stiles snorts. “Often. When I’m busy. I usually shove a highlighter in my mouth when I’m studying, so I don’t say everything out loud.”

The eyebrows move again. And one corner of Derek’s mouth turns up, twisting into an amused smirk. “So you have an oral fixation.”

Stiles is about to say something, thinks better of it, and snaps his mouth closed. “You could say that,” he mutters.

Derek touches Sitles’s lower lip, thumb sliding over the curve of it, slipping between the two lips and Stiles opens his mouth to let him in, just barely flicks his tongue against the pad of Derek’s thumb. There’s a low sound, and the thumb is gone, replaced by Derek dragging him in close and pressing mouth to mouth, teasing his lips open and Stiles takes that as well, chasing him down with his tongue.

Stiles whines, and Derek makes a low, pleased noise.

“Just think how much you could have had shutting me up last night, if you’d known it was me,” Stiles says as soon as they part. The noise Derek makes is somewhere between a snort and a growl, then he’s kissing Stiles again and Stiles is only too happy to let it continue.

Or more. Stiles would very much like more.

Well, maybe not _more_ while they’re in the _library_.

“We should get to know each other.” Derek pulls back, frames Stiles’s face as if Stiles might run away while Derek is speaking. “Go out. Trade asshole remarks and see if we can stand each other.”

“We should also kiss. And maybe more.”

Derek shakes his head, brows furrowing almost into a single line across his forehead. “Not yet. Not until we know each other. We may be marked, but I want to know I can stand being with you before we get that far.”

“I can handle that.” And Stiles _can_ , because Derek tastes like _home_ and _comfort_ along with _want_ and _need_. And he’s always been attracted to men with strong opinions and sharp wit, which gets labeled _asshole_ by people who don’t pay attention. He’s hoping Derek is like that, and if soulmates are truly a _thing_ then _yes_ , Derek will turn out to be exactly like that, and they will go on from here to live snarkily ever after.

“Are you done with your work?” Derek raises one eyebrow, nods at the laptop.

“Work is done, research is no longer needed, so I am good to go.” Stiles pulls away reluctantly to pack up. “Movie?”

“Movie. Dinner. Hanging out anywhere other than the apartment I share with my younger sister,” Derek says.

Stiles tosses his bag over one shoulder, reaches out to thread his fingers through Derek’s, letting his touch drag along his palm first and loving the way he feels Derek shiver slightly in response. “Sounds good to me.” He nudges Derek as they walk. “Don’t worry, big guy, this is all going to turn out all right.”

Derek meets his gaze, then looks lower, lingering on Stiles’s lips. “Maybe it will,” he says quietly. “First time in a long time that I’ve hoped for that.”

Stiles wonders why that is, who hurt Derek so badly in the past. But there’s time to figure all that out. Just because they’re marked doesn’t mean they have to go fast. They don’t have to fall in love immediately. They have time, and Stiles is willing to work for it. He’s willing to wait, if it means finding out who this man beside him is, because he’s already damn sure of one thing: Derek is gonna be worth it.

 

_It was just a passing touch in the dark._

_I felt the sting of your soul_

_Puncturing mine_

_Binding us together in ways_

_That will never untangle._

 

_It was just a passing touch in the dark,_

_But it was also the past, the present, and the future_

_All wrapped together and bound_

_Into the package that is who we were, who we are,_

_And who we shall ever be._

 

_It was just a passing touch in the dark._

_And it was so much more._

**Author's Note:**

> You can also find me [on tumblr](http://tryslora.tumblr.com)!


End file.
